A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BREAK

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BREAK; Saudis Criticize the Taliban And Halt Diplomatic Ties

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: September 26, 2001

CAIRO, Sept. 25—
Saudi Arabia announced today that it was severing diplomatic ties with the Taliban government of Afghanistan, ending a relationship that grew out of attempts to free the country from Soviet control and deepened with the drive to create a unified state based on strict Islamic law.

The announcement from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, was issued just three days after the United Arab Emirates shuttered the Afghan Embassy there, and it leaves Pakistan as the sole country still formally recognizing the Taliban.

Pakistan withdrew its diplomats from Afghanistan, but the government said it planned to maintain ties.

In its effort to track down Osama bin Laden and other suspects given safe harbor in Afghanistan, the United States has urged all countries to isolate the Taliban.

A Saudi statement criticized the Taliban for turning Afghanistan into ''a center for attracting, training and recruiting young and inexperienced men from all nationalities, especially from Saudi Arabia, to carry out criminal acts that violate all religions.''

At least 10 and possibly as many as 15 of the men suspected of having carried out the attacks in the United States are believed to have been Saudis. The Afghan government used the country ''to harbor, arm and encourage those criminals who carry out terrorist attacks which frighten the innocent and spread horror and destruction in the world,'' the statement said.

It added that the attacks ''defame Islam and defame the reputation of Muslims in the world.''

The statement did not mention Mr. bin Laden by name. But it said the kingdom was breaking relations because the Taliban had ignored all Saudi attempts ''to persuade it to stop harboring criminals and terrorists.''

The rupture will have little practical effect, because the kingdom had already downgraded relations and cut off official aid after the bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Mr. bin Laden was the prime suspect in those attacks, too, but Afghanistan rebuffed Saudi Arabia's attempts to extradite him.

In addition, the Taliban blocked Saudi attempts to end the final skirmishing with the remainder of the mujahedeen who still controlled the north of the country.

Also, as Saudi Arabia improved ties with Iran, which long had tense relations with the Taliban, it distanced itself from the group.

Saudi Arabia followed Pakistan's lead in recognizing the Taliban in 1997, a year after they had captured most of the country from the squabbling factions of the mujahedeen that the two countries had long backed.

At the time, recognition was considered a way of gaining influence over the unruly militia that had seemingly emerged from nowhere and appeared to be on the way to creating Afghanistan's first stable government in years.

The group was popular among fundamentalist Saudis who saw in them an echo of their own strict adherence to the tenets of Sunni Islam.

The Taliban outdid even Saudi Arabia with its interpretation of Islamic law, barring women from working and girls from schooling, along with television, dancing, music, movies, kite flying and photographs of living human beings.